Eva Hagberg

Mad Platter (CITY)

Published July 2007 (link)

It takes me three times around the block to find the place. We jump from the 1600s to the 1800s, from the BP gas station at the corner of Halsted and West North to the Black Duck Tavern on Halsted and Willow. I know we are looking for 1723 North Halsted, the address embedded in my memory the way the chef’s resume—French Laundry, Trio, here—is. We turn around, turn into the parking lot of the Steppenwolf Theatre, curve back around, again, and this time we’re slow enough at 1721—a children’s dentist, an unlikely neighbor—to catch the Valet Parking sign. Right next door, we find it: a two-story black brick bay-fronted building, the place I’ve been waiting for the last two years to visit: Alinea.

We are early, of course. (Late? To this place?) Someone has already told me about the door, how it slides open like a Star Trek bulkhead, so I’m expecting something a little different, a lot unusual. I’m not expecting the forced-perspective rabbit hole of an entryway, all scalloped walls and glowing red light, which slopes down and angles in, ending on a sculpture of horizontally suspended steel pins, pieces that will make at least one more encore. I feel like I’m in a combination of Alice in Wonderland and Battlestar Galactica and, once through the faux-elevator doors, like I’m in an otherworldly townhouse that bends to one man’s rules. I am. It does. “Chef would like to meet you.” I panic. I am Alice, and I am falling. I’m just not so sure I’m ready.

On the Cusp (Metropolis)

Amale Andraos and Dan Wood—a pair of OMA alums—emerge from the long shadow of Rem Koolhaas.

Published July 25, 2007 (link)

“We’re in purgatory,” Amale Andraos says one morning earlier this year, her back to a row of desks covered in iPods, blue foam models, and gleaming black computers, their screens showing half-kicky renderings, half-straightforward CAD. She’s talking about Work Architecture Com­pany’s recent move to its new offices, but she might also be talking about where the firm stands now, about how after founding the office four and a half years ago she and partner Dan Wood are beginning to form their own identity.

Work is just wrapping up projects accepted as part of its first five-year plan, which they describe simply as “say yes to everything.” That explains the bathroom; the low-budget apartment renovation; the kitchen, where, Andraos says, “we almost got fired because we didn’t know how to do a kitchen”; and the Ultrasuede bordello-themed conference room. Now, with projects ranging from the New York headquarters for Diane von Furstenberg (DVF) to shops for the Anthropologie chain, the firm is finding its way out of the shadow—the “tattoo,” Andraos once called it—of Rem Koolhaas.

Richard Serra at MoMA (wallpaper.com)

Published June 1, 2007 (link)

For a site-specific project on a private California art ranch, minimalist sculptor Richard Serra made a series of hyperdense Cor-Ten steel blocks. They are so heavy that they have their own gravity, or at least, when you walk past them, that’s how you feel: as though you might very well fall over, and into them.

This is my website

Hi. I'm a writer in New York. This is a collection of pieces I have written that other people have published. Or, it will be, as soon as I figure this out.

Webcams Transport Virtual Visitors (New York Times)

Published February 3, 2005 (link)

I met James Burns late on a Thursday night, and within an hour he had given me a tour of his house and showed me videos of his family trip to Disney's Animal Kingdom. By the time I closed the chat window and unplugged my Webcam, I'd seen his wife and his dog and told him his children were beautiful.

For personal encounters that go beyond e-mail and instant messaging, nothing is faster and more revealing than video chatting, as the trend is called. Using lightweight portable minicameras mounted on computer screens, people can see and be seen by friends or virtual strangers who are invited into the home to talk and take a look around.

Hostess With the Mostes' Jitters (New York Times)

Published November 18, 2004 (link)

Seated to my right was a former college fraternity president. To my left was a Condé Nast editor. The low roar of conversation — about personal trainers, one-night stands and the unlikely pleasures of calf roping — was interrupted by a spate of impromptu dancing, squeals of laughter and a brief wrestling bout. The tuna-noodle casserole was going over well, as were the Nutella and Skippy sandwiches.

The Postal Service, an indie-rock band, played in the background. A case of inexpensive wine was flowing, augmented by Grey Goose martinis and red plastic cups of Johnnie Walker Black, neat.

Dorothy Draper's advice was working.